


Dine-In

by pocky_slash



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, M/M, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-31
Updated: 2009-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:46:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24309946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: In a slightly different version of fall 2000, Will Bailey meets Sam Seaborn in a Chinese restaurant in Washington DC.
Relationships: Will Bailey/Sam Seaborn
Kudos: 8





	Dine-In

**Author's Note:**

> H'OKAY. This is/was the start of my epic, multi-season AU. Sam and Will meet at the start of season two and start secretly dating. Sam uses Will as a sounding board to work through a lot of his issues around things that occur in season two, and eventually he accidentally comes out. I think sometime in season three or season four, Will was going to be hired as a speechwriter for the President?
> 
> I had a lot planned! But in like, 2007 when I was writing this, the longest thing I had ever finished was only like, 6k, so I was doomed from the start.
> 
> Still, I did write a bunch, and here it is!

There's a decent Chinese restaurant about five blocks away from Will's new apartment. He found it by accident on his second week in DC after trying three sub-par Chinese places on the recommendation of people he works with. It's called "Kwan and Chan," though Will has never met Kwan. However, Mr. Chan is there every night, and after about a month, he knows Will's Friday night order by heart.

Will's waiting for that order, glancing nervously out the window and up at the sky, when Sam Seaborn walks into the restaurant.

It actually takes Will a minute to place Seaborn. He knows he looks familiar, but writes him off as a neighbor or someone he went to school with. He dismisses him and goes back to staring at the sky, hoping that it won't start raining, until he hears Mr. Chan speak.

"Ah, Mr. Seaborn!" he says, and then it clicks into Will's head. Sam Seaborn. Bartlet staffer. Speechwriter. Slept with a hooker. 

It's a shame, he finds himself musing as he turns to stare at Seaborn. He's really way too good looking to have to pay for sex.

"Hi, Mr. Chan," Seaborn says. "Could I get some moo shoo pork, an egg roll, and a pint of fried rice?"

"Ah, I'm sorry, Mr. Seaborn, no moo shoo pork," Mr. Chan says. Will looks over at the desk again. That's funny, because-- "My last customer ordered the last moo shoo pork."

Seaborn frowns. Will needs to stop paying so much attention to his mouth, especially since he feels slightly guilty that he's just taken the guy's food.

"Can't you just, you know, make more?" Seaborn asks hopefully. Mr. Chan taps his watch.

"Ten twenty-seven, Mr. Seaborn," he says. "We close at ten thirty. Besides, there are no more pancakes, either. Tomorrow." Seaborn glances around at the restaurant, which is hopping for nearly ten-thirty at night. There are only two or three tables open and the rest are grouped together and filled with college students.

"It looks pretty busy," Seaborn ventures.

"Private party," Mr. Chan says. "Vegetarian dinner."

"Well, who ordered it?" Seaborn tries again. "Are they here yet? Couldn't you just--"

Mr. Chan shakes his head. "The mai fun is very good tonight!"

Will sees Mr. Chan's daughter, Jessie, coming around the corner. He glances out at the sky one more time and then quickly gets to his feet. Hopefully, he can get to her and take the bag before she--

"Mr. Bailey! Moo shoo pork, small lo mein, and an egg roll, right?" She smiles at him for approval, all of sixteen years old and already itching to get out of her father's restaurant and into DC proper. Some Friday nights he's talked to her about college. This Friday night, he's wishing she had opted to stay upstairs, doing her homework.

"Thanks, Jessie," he says. He can feel Seaborn turning to look at him.

"You got the last of the moo shoo pork," Seaborn says. Will nods.

"I did," he admits. "Sorry about that. Try the lo mein instead, it's usually excellent." He glances out the window again, even though he has a feeling this conversation isn't over.

"Just, one second..." Seaborn frowns at him. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

"Will," Will says. He looks out the window again and hears thunder rumble in the distance. Shit. "And, I'm sorry, but--"

"Sam," Seaborn says. He offers Will his hand and Will finds himself taking it and shaking it, even as the thunder sounds again. "It's nice to meet you. Listen, I'm not going to ask you to give up your dinner. That would be ridiculous."

"Good," Will says, backing towards the door. "Because, I've gotta--"

"What I'm proposing," Seaborn--Sam continues, ignoring him, "is more like sharing. I mean, there's a lot of moo shoo pork in those little cartons and it comes with like, what, five, six pancakes?"

The door is in sight. Lightning flashes threateningly. And while Will would normally never turn down the chance to share dinner with an incredibly attractive man, he really does enjoy being warm and dry.

"Ordinarily, I would absolutely accept a dinner invitation from a hot stranger," Will says, continuing to back away, "but my car's in the shop and I live five blocks away. It's going to start to rain any minute, and I'd really like my food to still be warm by the time I--"

As if on cue, it starts to pour. Will turns to the window, gaping. His shoulders slump. Shit.

He sighs and turns back to Sam, who is staring at him.

"Hot?" Sam says, cracking a smile. Will can't help but smile back because, yeah, wow, maybe Sam Seaborn is flirting with him a little.

"I said that out loud, huh?" Will says, but he starts back across the room. "Well, yes, Sam Seaborn, you are indeed the cute one of the Bartlet Boys."

Sam's smile widens, but then abruptly turns into a contemplative frown. "Wait, you--"

"Yes," Will says. "I have, indeed, opened a newspaper in my lifetime." With one last fleeting look down the street--it really has been a long day and he wanted to be in bed by now--he looks over Sam's shoulder at Mr. Chan. "Could we get a table, Mr. Chan? It looks like we'll be eating in, if that's okay."

"Yes, fine," Mr. Chan says. He gestures for Jessie to ready a table. "You're both good customers." He's smiling, but his smile's got nothing on Jessie's. He wonders if Jessie's been playing matchmaker in her head since Will got to town.

Once Jessie's put out plates, Will and Sam take seats across from each other. Jessie starts to unpack Will's food until he waves her away with a smile and starts to do it himself. Sam's staring at him contemplatively, but he's got a smile on his face.

"So, I'm the cute one?" Sam finally asks once Jessie is gone. "I thought that was Josh."

Will tilts his head to the side, toying with his fried rice. "Josh Lyman is cocky and funny and smart, and while I can see how that is attractive to a lot of people, particularly college-age girls with a thing for older men, I would still say that you're the cute one." Sam rests one elbow on the table and props his chin on his hand. "You don't get a lot of people singling you out of that line-up, do you?" Will asks.

Sam blushes and little and quickly returns his attention to his dinner. "It's not--it doesn't matter, I was just--"

Will reaches across the table and grabs Sam's wrist. He's trying to figure Sam out, to back this up because very abruptly they've gone from flirting to something else and Will would like to return to flirting as soon as possible. 

"Hey," he says. "I'm trying to compliment you. Just go with it, okay?"

Sam ducks his head, but when he looks up, he's smiling. "Sorry," he says. "It's just--"

"I get it," Will says. "Toby Ziegler, Josh Lyman, Leo McGarry...."

"Exactly," Sam says. Some of the tension drains out of his shoulders. "I mean, I know I do good work and I know that I'm making substantive contributions, but there are days when I really feel like they're just on a whole other level." He shakes his head to himself and then stills, looking down at this hands. Will realizes he's still holding Sam's wrist and slowly, deliberately lets go.

"Well," Will says, "I think you're an incredibly skilled writer, if that means anything."

"Skilled and cute?" Sam asks, and Will holds his gaze without flinching.

"Yeah," he says. "Of course, how skilled remains to be seen..."

Sam laughs, and Will counts it as a point in his favor. It's been a long time since he's done this sort of flirting, the kind that feels like it's a full-contact competitive sport, and he's glad to see he's not as rusty as he thought. He likes Sam. He wasn't lying when he said he thought Sam was the cute one, a conclusion that had always been in the back of his mind, but was cemented in the weeks following the shooting at the Newseum, when Sam was on every news program that Will turned on. It's refreshing to find that Sam is just as genuine in person as he comes across on television.

Mostly, it's refreshing that Sam seems to be flirting back.

"So, tell me about you," Sam says. He starts to dig into the moo shoo pork. "Because, I've gotta say, it's a little bit creepy how much you know about me, and I don't even know your last name."

"That's what happens when you live your life in the public eye," Will says. He cuts his egg roll in half, and Sam snatches half of it before he can put the knife down. Will rolls his eyes, but he counts that as a good sign as well. Sam doesn't seem like the type of guy to leave someone hanging after eating half his dinner. "But, anyway, my last name is Bailey. I'm a lawyer. I work for the NCAC at the moment. I just started about a month ago."

"The National Coalition Against Censorship?" Sam asks. "What do you do there?"

"I mostly write threatening letters," Will admits. "About 98% of censorship challenges can be scared off by something sounding official and referencing the first amendment. It's not the most exciting job, but I like the NCAC and I'm still trying to figure out where I fit in the political machine."

"So you're interested in law?" Sam asks.

"Well," Will says, "I have a law degree. I'm mostly interested in helping people, as cheesy as that sounds."

"It doesn't sound cheesy at all," Sam says, and the hell of it is that Will believes him. He'd always thought that about Bartlet--that he and his people believed in change and hard work and equality and helping people--but he figured at least part of it was careful political posturing. 

Apparently not.

"I figure that the NCAC is a good place to start," Will says. "I was--" He pauses, wondering if he should lay all his cards on the table to start with. He likes his father, but he knows that the Bailey lineage can be intimidating. And he doesn't have to lie, so much as just omit some information. "--working in various capacities overseas for the past few years." He tries to look disarming and casual, hoping that Sam won't pursue that further. "I was sort of hoping to get right into campaigning, maybe work for the DCCC, but this job came up through someone I knew from law school and I figured I'd go for it, if only to get settled in town."

"Well, let me know when you want to start looking over at the DCCC," Sam says. He's sitting a little straighter, as if he's trying to project an air of confidence or importance. It's almost comical. "I know a few guys over there, I can pull a few strings."

"Let you know, huh?" Will asks, raising his eyebrows. "So, we'll be exchanging phone numbers, then?"

Sam smirks at him and then digs into his dinner again, a smile lingering on his face.

They somehow get on the subject of law school, which parlays into a dozen stories back and forth about pranks and exams and ridiculous things done at three am on caffeine binges. Sam talks a little about work, in the vaguest of ways, glancing around them absently before he begins to talk. He sags a little bit while he talks, and Will starts to notice circles under his eyes. He doesn't fool himself into thinking that working at the White House is easy, but just thinking about it seems to be sucking the life out of Sam.

He mentions that, albeit tactfully, and Sam frowns.

"It's not... I love it," he insists, running his fingers over the condensation on his water glass. Their food is long gone, and even the fortune cookies have been devoured. The party in the other half of the room is getting ready to leave, and Will knows they'll have to be on their way soon, too. "I love my job, but it's just... the past few weeks, with Josh out of the office, there's been more on my plate. We're trying to juggle all of the things we want to do while trying not to look like we're seizing the public's sympathy to do it, plus there's this whole thing in Florida...." He trails off and shakes his head. "There's a lot going on," he says, "and not a whole lot of time to decompress."

Will opens his mouth to respond, not entirely sure what he's going to say, when Jessie reappears to take their plates. The college kids are putting on their coats, and Sam gives a rueful little sigh.

"I guess we should get going," he says. He looks over at Will tentatively and adds, "Unless you wanted to come back to my place to keep talking?"

Will feels himself smile. Victory.

"That would be great," he says. "Especially since it's still raining and I still don't have a car."

"Well, we wouldn't want you to get wet," Sam says, but he can't stop smiling either. 

They squabble over the bill, which Sam ends up paying, claiming it's the least he can do after stealing half of Will's dinner. Will then follows Sam out to his car, holding his briefcase over his head to try and escape the worst of the pouring rain. The drive to Sam's apartment is long--Kwan and Chan's seems to be unnecessarily out of his way, plus he can only go about ten miles an hour if he actually wants to see out the windshield. Will uses the time to both relax and psych himself up just a little. He hates to admit it, especially to his sister, with her sad eyes, and his father, with his commanding personality, but he's starting to get lonely in DC. He doesn't have many friends and he's not on great terms with most of his co-workers, who still write him off as the new guy and stick him with the most tedious of assignments. He likes the idea of not being alone tonight, simply because he's sick of living in his own head.

Plus, Sam is very easy on the eyes.

Sam's apartment is in a much better part of town than Will's, brightly lit and inviting. Sam holds the door open for him and directs him to the elevator. If he's at all nervous or even excited, he doesn't show it. He seems casual as can be, humming under his breath as they go up to the third floor, digging in his pocket for his keys once they get off the elevator, opening his door as calmly as anything.

"I'm going to put on a pot of coffee," he says, draping his jacket over the back of the couch. "Do you want anything?" He heads into the kitchen and Will follows close behind. Sam is certainly making this difficult. Will wonders if this is just another part of the game.

"Coffee's fine," Will says. He stands at Sam's shoulder as Sam spoons in the coffee and pours water into the pot. Will's beginning to get a little impatient. Do they really need coffee right now? Later, maybe, or in the morning if things go well, but at the moment, Will can live without it. There are things he wants a little more.

Sam finishes up with the coffeemaker and turns around, leaning back on his elbows and smiling at Will. That's a cue if Will has ever seen one.

He curls his hand around the back of Sam's neck and pulls him closer. Sam's eyes go wide just as Will leans in, and it isn't until he's kissing him--playful, firm, and relatively tame--that it occurs Will that Sam is a little more surprised than he should be, and really not participating much.

He pulls back. Sam is staring at him with wide, dazed eyes.

"Um," he says.

Will swears under his breath.

"You said you wanted to keep taking," Will says. Sam nods. "You meant you wanted to keep talking." Sam nods again. Will covers his face with his hands, pushing his glasses to the top of his head. It figures. It fucking figures. "Oh my god," he says, "you actually meant you wanted to keep talking!"

"You meant... um not that," Sam says. His cheeks are starting to color. Will can see that even without his glasses, which he replaces when he starts to run his hands through his hair. Embarrassing does not begin to cover this.

"Yeah," Will says. He tips his head back and stares up at the ceiling. Talking wasn't bad. He does like Sam, quite a bit, and, as he had reasoned earlier, he doesn't have very many friends in DC. There are worse ways to spend the night than talking with a smart, articulate guy, even if it's not going to end the way he had hoped. "Not that. But, you know, talking's okay." He looks back at Sam and offers him a sheepish smile. Sam is looking at him oddly. It takes him a minute to notice but...yeah, Sam is definitely staring at his mouth.

"Okay," Sam says absently. Will's smile turns predatory.

"Of course, my thing would be a lot more fun...."

He barely finishes the sentence before Sam's practically on top of him, hands in his hair, pulling him down for another kiss.

This time, Sam is definitely participating. Sam knows how to kiss, and has no problem letting himself be pushed out of the room. Will doesn't know where the bedroom is and doesn't really want to ask, but they did pass a couch and that's just as good for the time being. 

He pushes Sam onto the couch and climbs onto his lap, which makes Sam laugh for some reason. It's a nice sound, though it stops abruptly when Will pulls off his tie and starts to unbutton his shirt. After that, the sounds are more like labored breathing and little whimpers as Will's hands get further down Sam's body. When they reach his belt, the swearing starts.

Will's able to pull a medley of different noises out of Sam as the night goes on, and adds a few in himself. They do eventually move to the bedroom, which is almost endearingly cluttered with piles of things on every available surface. Not that Will has much time to look. By that point, they're both mostly naked and focused on things other than interior decorating, though Will takes a closer look much later, when they're stretched out against each other, blissed out and quiet.

Will's happy. As it turns out, Sam is, in fact, very skilled at many things. They moved together with a fluidity that matched their rapid-fire conversation, and Sam was self-deprecating enough to vanquish any doubts that Will may have had. It's a good night. And it looks like Sam isn't eager to kick him out of bed, either.

"You said you went overseas?" Sam asks, lazily. His head is resting on Will's upper arm, and Will's fingers are in his hair.

"Hm?" Will asks.

"Over dinner," Sam says. "You said you were working overseas?"

"Right," Will says. Sam's hair has curled around the edges, damp from sweat. He runs his fingers over the curls to smooth them down. "When I was in law school I did some ghostwriting for some people working at the NATO headquarters in Brussels. When I got my degree, I was going to come right over and dive into work in Washington, but someone offered me a writing job I couldn't refuse." He laughs at the memory. "I'm pretty sure that it was a favor to my father at first, but after that, I basically got passed around from one dignitary to another for a year and a half. It was good money." He shifts slightly, pulling a pillow to his chest with his free hand. It dawns on him, suddenly, that he's just made it exceedingly easy for Sam to trace him back to his father. He hopes, desperately, that Sam's brain is too fried to connect the dots.

"A favor to your father?" Sam asks. "Did your father work for--"

Will feels the moment that pieces come together in Sam's head. He freezes, then sits up.

"Wait a second," he says. "Did you say your last name was--"

"Yeah," Will says, guiltily. He covers his face with the pillow, though Sam grabs it away just as quickly.

"You're William Bailey. Your father is--"

"Yeah," Will says.

"You're _that_ Bailey?" Sam asks bleakly.

"Yes, Sam," Will says. He's starting to get annoyed, now. "My father is, indeed, Major General Thomas F. Bailey, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO Europe. It's not a big deal."

"I can't believe you're _that_ Bailey," Sam says again, taking his turn with covering his face with a pillow. Will just rolls his eyes and yanks the pillow back, rolling onto his stomach and resting his elbows on the pillow, his chin on his arms. Sam, he thinks, really is quite cute, if slightly deluded.

"It's not a big deal," Will insists. "He's just a guy." Sam rolls onto his side and gives Will something he can only describe as A Look.

"I've met your dad, Will," he says. "He's not just a guy. He's... aloof and terrifying."

"He plays the oboe," Will says. He can almost see the gears in Sam's head screeching to a confused stop. He counts their breaths as Sam stares at him.

"Wait, what?" he finally says, and Will grins.

"He's just a guy," Will repeats. "He plays the oboe. Pretty well, actually. He doesn't do it as much anymore, but he would pull it out every once in awhile when we were kids and when we were practicing our own instruments." Sam is still staring at him. "Next time you're in a room with him and he's scaring the shit out of you, you can think, 'Wow, he plays the oboe.' Or, hey, better yet, you can ask him about it. It'll really throw him for a loop and he'll be too busy telling you pointless stories about how he met my mom to be menacing."

Sam is _still_ staring. It's starting to become unnerving.

"He also cheats at the crossword puzzle and throws rocks at the squirrels on his birdfeeder," Will adds with slightly less resolve.

Sam breaks into a grin and shakes his head. "You are so...."

"Weird?" Will suggests, feeling his ears heat up.

"No," Sam says, still grinning. "You're... I don't know what you are, but it's... I like it."

"Good," Will says. He's doing a good job of hiding his utter relief. "Because I expect breakfast before I leave in the morning, especially after you ate half my dinner."

Sam laughs and settles down again, lies on his back and inches closer to Will. He seems quiet all of a sudden, and distant, though he reaches out a hand to stroke the side of Will's arm almost absently.

"You okay?" Will asks, and Sam shrugs.

"I... I have this friend from law school," he says. "His name is Tom and Leo McGarry had me talk him into running for Congress. A couple weeks ago, they dug up some stuff about him and...well, it's not great. He liked white juries when prosecuting black defendants. It's not something to be proud of, but it's one of those things that people do to get the job done. A lot of people are going to criticizing it and I can't help but think I've screwed up for him."

"He agreed to run, didn't he?" Will asks. His fingers find their way back into Sam's hair and he wonders what brought on this bout of contemplative melancholia.

"Yeah," Sam says, "but he's young. He's got a pregnant wife and I let him think it would be a cake walk. He wasn't ready for things to get dirty."

"It's politics, Sam," Will says, not unkindly. "It's always going to get a little bit dirty. He should have realized that going in."

"I feel like it's my fault," Sam says. "And in the end, I'm still going to have a job and he's going to be a joke." He stretches, which is really just an excuse to get closer and pull the blanket up to his chin. Will doesn't mind at all.

He hums under his breath and finally says, "My dad used to say that feeling guilty is usually better than the alternative."

"What's the alternative?" Sam asks.

"Feeling nothing at all," Will says.

Sam is quiet after that. Will feels his chest rise and fall, hears the whisper of his breath.

"Maybe your dad isn't so crazy after all," Sam says, and Will finds himself smiling.

"See?" he says. "I told you."

***

Morning comes too quickly. Will misses the days when he could sleep until noon, write until three am, and do it all over again the next day, though he's acutely aware that he'll never have those days back.

It's Saturday, which should be Will's day off, but he volunteered to help his boss clear out some old files, a fact which his cell phone alarm reminds him of at seven am. Sam is still blissfully passed out next to him, and Will leaves him for as long as it takes to shower. He's toweling off and looking for his missing tie when Sam finally rolls over and sits up.

"Hey," he says. He looks befuddled and Will has to laugh at the mark on his cheek from a crease in the pillowcase. "What's, um..."

"I told my boss I'd help him out with something this morning," Will says. He finally spots his tie on the floor under the bed and grabs it,draping it around his neck. "I'd like to take a raincheck on the breakfast you owe me, though."

"Okay," Sam says. He looks genuinely sorry to see Will go, sitting alone in the middle of the bed and still blinking sleep out of his eyes. Will grabs a pen from the bedside table and scribbles his number on the back of a receipt from his pants pocket.

"You should call me," he says, and means it. Sam takes the slip of paper from him and looks at it for a moment, then looks back up at Will.

"I will," Sam says. He reaches out and pulls Will toward him by the tie, kisses him one last time in a sleepy way that's much more endearing than it is sexy. Will finds that he likes it that way.

"There's a cab waiting for me downstairs," Will says. "I'll talk to you soon."

"Count on it," Sam says, and Will forces himself to leave before he does something crazy like call his boss and cancel so he can climb back into bed.

***

It's not that he doesn't expect Sam to call. He knows that Sam had as much fun as he did and wouldn't be opposed to doing it again. In fact, he expects Sam to call. Late at night, probably, in a few weeks, when he's stressed out about work again. Will figures that Sam will call, he'll drive over to his place. They'll fuck, banter a little, and maybe order in dinner. He's too dignified to use the phrase "booty call," but that's really what it boils down to.

He's surprised, then, to see Sam's name pop up on his caller ID when he's on the phone with his sister. He's so surprised that he needs to stare at it for a moment to fully digest it.

"Will? Will? Willy?"

"Don't call me that," he says absently into the phone to Elsie. Then, "Els, hold on a second, all right? There's someone on the other line." He clicks over to the other line before she can interrogate him about the caller's identity. "Hello?"

"Hi, Will?" Well, that ruled out the possibility of someone breaking into Sam's apartment and using his phone. "It's Sam."

"Hi," Will says. "Um, how are you?"

"Good," Sam says. "Well, mostly good. I think I'm doing all right." He pauses and adds, "Are you okay? You sound confused."

"I am, a little," Will admits.

"You told me to call," Sam says quickly. "Was I not supposed to call?"

"No, no," Will says just as quickly. "I was just on the phone with my sister, it's no big deal. What's up?"

"Nothing," Sam says. "I mean, I just wanted to talk to someone with enough intelligence to follow a conversation from point a to point b. I spent twenty minutes on the phone with my landlord, and I still have no hot water. I don't even think he knows why I called."

Will laughs. "Well, unfortunately, while I have no problem outlining the history of a two-party system in American politics for hours on end, I know very little about plumbing."

"That's okay," Sam says. "I'm actually calling from work. I came over to use the showers in the gym."

"Good thinking," Will says. He's only a little disappointed that Sam's not calling to ask to use his shower. "So what are your plans for the rest of the day?"

"I'm not sure yet," Sam says. "I'm supposed to be working on this speech, but my brain is short-circuiting. Words are probably not going to be happening today."

"Do you want to get a cup of coffee or something?" His caller ID flashes again. Elsie must have hung up and called back. He ignores her.

"I... yeah, I would," Sam says. He laughs. "I guess maybe I should have opened with that. There's one thing that I--I want to swing by Josh's first, just to poke my head in for a few minutes."

"That sounds great," Will says. He means it. He thinks he may be getting a little attached to Sam Seaborn. "Do you want to come by here, seeing as how I actually have heat and hot water?"

"Sure," Sam says. "That would be fine. Super. Great."

"Okay, then," Will says. He can't get the smile off his face, even as he gives Sam brief directions. He's still smiling when he clicks back over to the other line.

That is, until he takes a good look around his apartment.

"Shit," he says.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" Elsie asks. "Is it bad news? Is it Daddy? Do you still have a job?"

"No, no, no," he says. "That wasn't--it was a friend."

"Is it a sexy friend?" Elsie asks.

"I really don't have time for this right now, Elsie," he says. "Someone's coming over and I need to clean up my place."

"Oh my god, it was a booty call!" She sounds far too gleeful.

"It was not a booty call!" Will exclaims. "And I can't believe I just said 'booty call' out loud. Jesus. Go away, would you?"

"Is he hot?" she asks.

"Good bye, Elsie!"

He hangs up without waiting for a response and glances around the room. He has about an hour before Sam gets here, and while he can't really do anything about the mountain of laundry growing sentient life in his closet, he can certainly try and do some dishes.


End file.
